“The Wizard of Oz” remained a favorite of mine all through my childhood and after so much advancement in special effects, it’s still a marvel to watch. Fleming and Warner’s partnering was a match made in heaven as Fleming took the L. Frank Baum beloved novel and gave us a fantasy epic that’s been mimicked and beloved since its initial release. Years after wearing down my old VHS copy I’ve managed to view the Victor Fleming masterpiece as one of the weirdest films ever made. Watching it from the view of a child differs from when you see it as an adult and watching it on the restored 70th Anniversary edition has brought to mind some images that seemed normal then that are surprisingly surreal today.
Tag Archives: Adventure
Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock (2009)
So this is what it’s come to for Rodriguez. Trading all his indie cred for a movie that plays like a messy sloppy concoction of ideas that never even bother to sort out its stories and characters for the audience. Instead, per Robert’s usual bad habit, we’re given a bunch of supporting characters, main characters, and side characters, all of whom are barely emphasized in the wide scope of this ADD enhanced stink pile. Rodriguez’s style of making the cheapest movie with his quick fix CGI has become something of a really bad habit where the man doesn’t even seem to want to try his hand at complicated filmmaking anymore.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Film Collection (DVD)
Like many of you who grew up during the eighties, the Ninja Turtles was a big part of my life. It was a fun, kick ass animated series that took the plots as seriously as can be while also squeezing in some hilarity in the process. Michelangelo is the primary source for the comic relief and thankfully in everything I’ve ever seen from the heroes in a half shell, there’s never been an instance where one character was annoying or grating. Now comes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles box set from Warner that not only includes every Ninja Turtle movie ever made, but also arrives with a choice few special prizes the youngens will enjoy. The entire set comes in a fancy DVD case with a cover that resembles a man hole. When opened we get a basic booklet that features separate discs and sadly a bunch of black DVD holders that serve no purpose. Thankfully that one faulty aesthetic is more than made up for when you take in to consideration what you’re getting here.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
I’ve had a rocky relationship with the GI Joe franchise from the start. As a kid I loved the action figures but I didn’t care too much for the eighties cartoon. I mean let’s face it, only Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were really cool. The rest were pretty interchangeable characters. And then the comics came along changing my mind on the property further convincing me to enjoy the mythos with the Devil’s Due Publishing comic series that were mature, tense, and action packed. With Stephen Sommers aboard I obviously didn’t expect an adaptation of the modern series and instead just expected dumb fun. Well, dumb fun is what I got and I was pleased as punch once the end credits began to roll.
Coraline (2009)
Director Henry Selick’s take on Neil Gaiman’s vision of a magical world of the macabre is probably one of the most sinister animated films I’ve seen since “Monster House.” Henry Selick takes the same American Gothic motif and injects it in to a classic formula of a young girl finding a magical world being exposed to all the oddities at the director’s disposal. Gaiman penned the grossly underrated “Mirrormask” and essentially provides us with the exact pacing and eye catching creatures and machinations paired with some top notch animation that works as a mixture of claymation and computer animation that gives the dark atmosphere a peculiar more original taste.
Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) (DVD)
While DC Comics may not have the box office power Marvel has (save “The Dark Knight”), or the volume in straight to DVD features, they have the quality that Marvel lacks whenever they decide to churn out a feature film on the home video circuit. DC has it all over Marvel when it comes to home video releases from “The New Frontier” to “Wonder Woman,” they have it all over their rival company. And just as the movie is being cast and brought to the big screen, we’re given a special glimpse in what could be with “Green Lantern: First Flight”! DC has been mostly hit on the Straight to DVD circuit and “First Flight” is proof that they just can’t be beaten when it comes to animated features.
Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans (2009)
I guess there was nowhere else to go with the series after the first two films pretty much accomplished all that it could. “Underworld” has been a very mediocre film franchise but with a surprisingly interesting mythos involving lycans and vampires and to prevent us from watching a repeat story similar to the first two, we instead get a prequel, the story of the feud between the lycans and the vampires that we only got a taste of in the first “Underworld.” While “Rise of the Lycans” does have its problems, the special effects can sometimes become some great eye candy that makes up for the poor story.